Robert Brandom's Normative Inferentialism

The philosophy of language of Robert Brandom is based on a theoretical structure composed of three main elements: the normative analysis of linguistic practices, the inferential characterization of conceptual contents and the expressive articulation of the relations between the former two. Normative pragmatics aims to explain how linguistic practices are sufficient to confer contentful states in those who engage in them. Inferential semantics provides a theory of such pragmatic significances in terms of the inferential relations that articulate conceptual contents. Rational expressivism is the thesis that concept application is essentially a process of turning something that can only be done into something that can also be said. Such a threefold structure is the core of normative inferentialism. This book is a concise, self-contained and comprehensive presentation of this philosophical enterprise. It guides the reader through the analysis of Brandom's imposing theoretical apparatus, the discovery of the roots of his approach in American pragmatism and German idealism, till the exploration of some of its most interesting and recent outcomes in pragmatics and semantics. It is a valuable resource for both those who approach Brandom's work for the first time and those who are interested in the potential of normative inferentialism.

“I enjoyed reading this book, and have learned much from it. The text is generally written in a lucid, engaging style, and shows evidence of wide and deep study not only of RB’s work but in the mainstream C20 traditions of philosophy of language and semantic/pragmatic theory. Readers who are less familiar with RB’s antecedents and foils in these traditions will benefit from GT’s careful exposition and critique of their respective positions.”

2000b “Vocabularies of Pragmatism: Synthesizing Naturalism and Historicism.” In Rorty and His Critics, ed. by Robert Brandom, 156–182. Oxford: Blackwell.

Brandom, Robert

2002aTales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays in the Metaphysics of Intentionality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Brandom, Robert

2002b “The Centrality of Sellars’ Two-Ply Account of Observation to the Arguments of “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”.” In Tales of the Mighty Dead: Historical Essays in the Metaphysics of Intentionality, 348–368. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reprinted in (Brandom 2015a), 99-119.

2013 “Pragmatism, Expressivism, and Anti-Represntationalism.” In Three Themes in Contemporary Pragmatism, ed. by Huw Price, Simon Blackburn, Robert Brandom, Paul Horwich, and Michael Williams, 85–111. Also published as chapter 7 of (Brandom 2011b).

1965 “What is a Speech Act?” In Philosophy in America, ed. by Max Black, 221–239. New York: Cornell University Press. Reprinted in (Martinich and Sosa 1996), 130-140. Also reprinted in (Davis 1991), 254-264.

1948 “Realism and the New Way of Words.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8 (4): 601–634. Reprinted with revisions in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, ed. by Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars, 424-456, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949. Also reprinted in (Sellars 1980), 46-78.